Oil City

Now Reliance is more than doubling the size of the facility, which, when completed in December, will claim the title of the world's biggest (overtaking a South Korean complex), with an output of 1.2 million gallons of gasoline per day, or about 5% of global capacity. The expansion, begun in October 2005, is being managed by San Francisco-based Bechtel. It will cost another $6 billion and employ 70,000 workers to lay 13 million feet of pipe feeding 42 flare towers, which burn off residue gas created when converting crude oil into gasoline and diesel.

NEXT: High expectations